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recipe: sausage stuffed zucchini

I love the combination of spices that goes into sausage. The fennel, sage, red pepper flake, and all the rest, just speak to me. I used to make my own seitan sausage, but our house is mostly gluten free now. Thus, the “sausage” in this recipe is tempeh-based. I love to top these with some Daiya mozzarella and broil them for two or three minutes after they are done baking. The ooey, gooey slightly browned cheese on top is the perfect finish. Alas, I didn’t have any Daiya the day of this recipe documentation, so we went without. They were still (all eight of them!) gleefully gobbled up that day.

In this recipe I use a flax “egg” to bind the ingredients. If you haven’t used a flax egg, they are awesome and super easy to make. Simply combine hot water and ground flax seed at about a 2:1 ratio (water: flax) and let sit for a few minutes until it thickens and is the consistency of a beaten egg. You can see in the photo it sticks to the spoon, that’s what you’re going for!

Finally, before we get onto the recipe, a word about hollowing out zucchini. The zucchinis I used here were “young” (meaning small). I used four (to make eight boats), but if you are using larger zucchini the stuffing here will probably fill two large squashes (four boats). In any matter, when you slice these lengthwise, find a spoon that is smaller than the width of the squashes (roughly) and then insert the spoon at the bottom (wider) part of the zucchini and just rock the spoon back and forth all the way up the length of the squash. I find this is the easiest way to get out most of the flesh and also keeps you from hacking into the skin of the squash, which you want to stay intact!